I was born on June 21, 1968 in Brooklyn, NY. Both of my parents are teachers (actually, Dad is now a retired teacher ;) ). My early years were fairly uneventful - your basic Little-League, Cub-Scout, jungle-gym-in-the-backyard sort of thing. I graduated from the University of Miami in 1990.
I work in a government office crunching numbers on the night shift. Working at night has its good and bad sides to it. The good part is I don't need to set an alarm clock in the morning (I am very much a night person). The bad part is I'm kinda out of sync with the rest of the world. If I want to watch something on prime-time TV, I have to remember to tape it, which I don't always do. (Don't get me started on daytime TV :P ) Consequently, there are very few TV shows I watch on a regular basis - Daria, King of the Hill, The Real World, Xena.
I am a sports fan of the obsessive statistics-spouting variety. With the exception of the Miami Hurricanes, my favorite teams are the ones I've followed since childhood: the Rangers, the Giants, the Knicks. I used to be a Mets fan, but I've tuned out baseball. Unfortunately, the soccer team of my youth, the Cosmos, is no longer in business, and the MetroStars haven't caught my interest, and it's rather difficult to follow Manchester United or whoever from here, so I don't have a favorite in that sport (apart from the national team). It cuts down on the arguments ;), but I do feel I'm missing something.
Musically, I have some definite preferences. I like tunes, with strong melodies and plenty of hooks. Given that, I don't make much distinction between guitar-based bands (Smithereens, REM) and synth-based ones (NIN, New Order). This current trend we're going through, "electronica" or "ambient" or whatever you want to call it, doesn't really do anything for me. The music seems aimless, unfocused. Take "Firestarter" (please!) - a beat, some synth blasts, an Art of Noise sample, and a few nonsense lyrics. Where's the song? What's the point? There's no there there.
My online life began in 1994. Mom finally put the old Tandy out to pasture and bought a new computer ... with a modem ... and a Compuserve flyer in the modem box. I signed up, and it was like a whole new dimension was opened up to me. Here were people talking about things I was interested in. And that feeling of "Oh wow, I just wrote to someone in Australia!" By the end of the year, I had an ISP account and my first attempt at a homepage (this is the fourth generation). In the summer of '95 I discovered the Usenet group alt.music.nin which, along with its IRC spinoff #amnin, has become my main cyberhangout (come on in and see it for yourself.) Other regular haunts include rec.music.tori-amos, alt.sports.hockey.nhl.ny-rangers, and the Melissa Etheridge mailing list.